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A case of wild poliovirus type-1, due to an importation of virus from neighboring Somalia, has been reported from a refugee camp in North Eastern Province of Kenya. The 3-year old girl, who has not traveled to Somalia, was born and lives in the refugee camp in the District of Garissa bordering Somalia, where an outbreak has led to 216 cases to date since July 2005. She was paralyzed by polio on 17 September 2006.

Genetic sequencing indicates a virus of Nigerian origin, imported from Kismayo, Somalia; it is not possible to determine how long the virus has been circulating in Kenya. A joint national/international rapid response team is conducting a detailed clinical and epidemiological investigation.

Emergency, sub-national mop-up rounds with monovalent type-1 oral poliovirus vaccine (mOPV1) are scheduled for northeastern Kenya for 3 November, covering 250,000 children in Kenya and coordinated with Somalia and Ethiopia. The next round in December may be expanded to include Nairobi and other high-risk areas. More

Hargeisa, Somalia – Recognizing the media's critical role during polio immunization campaigns, the World Health Organization and UNICEF held an educational workshop for journalists on 16-18 October 2006 in Somalia.

Somalia, polio-free since 2002, became re-infected in 2005 by virus originating in Nigeria. Outbreak control efforts have succeeded in containing the disease to a cross-border patch between Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

However, reaching every child with oral polio vaccine is extremely challenging in these areas. The communities are remote and people move frequently across porous borders. In some areas, insecurity also makes it difficult to reach children.

"That is where the local media comes in," commented Liliane Boualam, Epidemiologist for Polio Eradication at WHO Geneva, speaking from the workshop in Hargeisa. "The media have the ability to reach populations in the most remote areas across the Horn of Africa, with vital messages on polio vaccination."

The Somali-language section of the BBC World Service is the most widely-listened to broadcast medium across the region; the workshop therefore included Yusuf Garaad, Head of the BBC Somali Service from London, along with key BBC reporters from across Somalia, including Osman Hassan Barise, star correspondent at BBC Mogadishu and better known as 'The Most Popular Man in Somalia'.

"Polio is a hugely important issue for our audiences," said Yusuf Garaad. "That is why we at the BBC wanted to attend this workshop. We will continue to broadcast objective and reliable information about polio eradication, and thanks to the information presented at this workshop, our programming will be even more relevant."

The workshop was timed to precede the next mass polio vaccination campaign across the Horn of Africa, starting on 3 November. Making sure that communities are aware of the vaccinations will be critical to the campaign's success.

Participants at the media workshop included more than 40 journalists, key representatives from the government and from the Somali region of Ethiopia, religious leaders and organizations and families of polio survivors.

Canada announced today a contribution of Canadian $5 million (US$ 4.5 million) for polio eradication in Afghanistan. This announcement comes at a time when regular and costly polio vaccination campaigns must be carried out nationwide, covering seven million children, in response to an outbreak in the southern region. Conflict in this part of the country has made it difficult to reach all children, resulting in a resurgence of the disease, especially in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. If left unchecked, polio could spread among millions of Afghan children and threaten to reverse progress in neighbouring countries that are polio-free.

Read the press release of the Canadian International Development Agency

"Since 1988, the number of children paralyzed each year by polio worldwide has been reduced from more than 350,000 to less than 2,000 in 2005, but until polio is eliminated from every country, children everywhere remain at risk," said Josée Verner, Minister of International Cooperation. Since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, indigenous polio viruses have been eliminated in all but four countries around the world, including Afghanistan. The announcement comes after a visit to Canada by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Alarmed by the rise in cases of polio this year (28 to date, as opposed to just 9 in all of 2005), President Karzai last month established a "National Polio Action Group" under his direct authority and began dialogue with all the governors of the southern provinces. This led to a strategy of one-day 'focus district campaigns' in high-risk districts, using a larger number of village-based teams who will work only in their own village, which is easier and safer for health workers than travelling to communities where they are strangers. This approach was used for the first time on 8th September, and observers report that it allows for increased vaccination impact in the key pockets of virus transmission and increases community ownership of the programme. More such campaigns are planned in the Southern Region.

Canada's contribution is a welcome influx into the US$ 6.3 million needed for Afghanistan's polio vaccination campaigns for the next six months as well as for ongoing surveillance for the disease. The sum raises Canada's part in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to over US$ 180 million and follows commitments made at the G8 Summits in Gleneagles in 2005 and St. Petersburg this year.

In 2006, Afghan authorities have carried out eight polio vaccination campaigns, four of which were nation-wide – targeting over 7 million children under the age of five each time – and the rest in the highest-risk areas. So far, the outbreak has not spread out of the southern provinces of Hilmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul to the polio-free areas of Afghanistan. To ensure that children continue to be protected, even in zones of insecurity, a further campaign will be held 14-16 November and several are planned for the first quarter of 2007.

The polio eradication campaign is one of the few public health initiatives still maintaining some degree of operations in the southern region of the country. Health workers on the ground are operating under extremely difficult and dangerous conditions, risking their lives in efforts to reach every child with polio vaccine.

Following an emergency meeting of health ministers of polio-affected states, the Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss announced his decision to visit the state with the highest number of cases, Uttar Pradesh. Genetic sequencing so far indicates that with the exception of cases in Bihar, all cases of polio in India this year are due to virus originating in western Uttar Pradesh. The next supplementary immunization activities have been expanded to include states considered at high risk and are due to start on 12 November.

Vaccinator marks a child on a train after vaccinating him, part of a strategy to reach children while they travel
A vaccinator on a train in India puts a finger mark on a child after giving him polio drops, part of a strategy to reach children while they travel

Dublin – In recognition of his country’s outstanding financial contribution to polio eradication, Rotary International today presented Prime Minister Bertie Ahern with the Polio Eradication Champion Award.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern of Ireland receives Polio Champion Award

The award was established in 1995 to recognize governments and world leaders who have made outstanding contributions toward the goal of eradicating polio. “Until polio is eradicated worldwide, no child is safe from this crippling and potentially fatal disease,” said Robert Scott, Trustee of the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. “On behalf of Rotary’s 1.2 million members worldwide, and the millions of children who will be protected against this disease, I am honored to recognize the Government of Ireland, under the leadership of An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, for its continued support of a polio-free world.”

The government of Ireland has contributed a total of €12.88 million (US$16.5 million) to polio eradication, including a recent three-year commitment of € 9 million.
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For the first time since immunization was stopped (2003) and then restarted (2004) in northern Nigeria, there appears to be an increase in the numbers of children being vaccinated. Preliminary data available in the third week of September suggests that the Immunization Plus Days in May, June and September this year were more successful in reaching children in high risk northern states than previous vaccination campaigns in 2005 and 2006, and that the combination of monovalent oral polio vaccine and better coverage is having an impact on the transmission of polio. Eleven states in the north of Nigeria have carried out IPDs, with increasing levels of community engagement and involvement of local leaders.

Independent monitoring after the campaigns shows a decrease in the proportion of houses that monitors found to be missed by house-to-house vaccination teams. This data - in the figure below - suggests improvements in reaching children in several high risk states.

Additional data - on the proportion of children who have never received a single dose of oral polio vaccine - indicates a decline in that proportion. While the data is incomplete for the third quarter of the year, it does at this stage support the evidence from monitoring data that the IPDs have led to a higher proportion of children being reached with vaccine.

The IPD approach appears to have broken some significant barriers in terms of accessing houses and children with vaccine. The challenge ahead is to sustain and accelerate this trend so that no child is missed.